Gloom Cupboard

Presenting: Ben Barton

REMEMBRANCE

my pen is my weapon
a limb of

my sharpened tongue
Here to set wagging

all your dirty
little secrets

Everything you have
tried to forget

I play them
Little scenes in my head

over and over.

I remember.

(more…)

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Presenting: Andrew Taylor

Advent

A heartbeat, a dawning of process.
Let’s ride it until the formal eyes
tune in, absorb the light of newness.
I’ll take a hold, engage like

the first breath after coma. (more…)

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Presenting: Peycho Kanev

picture of a dog

someday she will look exactly
like my body
and then I will not be able
to love myself
I will be old dog blind
of old age
and if this happens
I will say;
my Heart is a dead cat
but
the bitch of my night
drags the dogs of my days
while I read Dylan Thomas
and watch on the roof across the street
1 cat between the winter’s pigeons.

(more…)

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Presenting: A.D. Winans

AMERICA

Drummed out of the infantry of death
I came back to you carrying the
Poems of my soul
Opened the door of life
And found only death inside

America
I have read the state of the union
And listened to the state of the economy
By statesmen in a state of hysteria (more…)

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Presenting: Joseph Goosey

KILLER WHALES AND GREASE

I am hungry.
I told her.

What will you eat?
She asked.
I could bring you
some soup.

No matter,
I said,
I’ve got this here
ice water.

I slept.
Curled up as if
something lived
on the other side
of my door.

I dreamt of killer whales and grease. (more…)

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Presenting: A.J. Kaufmann

Under Berlin sky

the Berlin sky is all set ablaze
w/ Fernsehenturm candles & vertigo
cafes
where districts roll by like swans
in search of black&white angels
in search of our good’ ole Nick
or some Cabaret
blazin’
revival
all footnotes
to heaven
& such…

weddings, funerals, orchestras…
shock rock guitars…
the whole avant-garde
in a single black dot
the hair-ties
& sunflower suits…

so the sky scans the crowds
on the lookout for patchy jackets
cheap worn-out stetsons
jeans & boots full of holes
or a field of sand to play in
to draw mandalas
& cease to wonder
to begin a life
at every shredded breath’s corner
or find yourself in a room
full of strangers like snakes
& ladders to Jacob’s
milkshake
dream
w/ one of your notebooks in hand
still empty…

get in line
for the casting:
One Second Assumption
A Lifetime of Sweat
& Repentance

perhaps Polanski’s cut out
to make such a killer
real… (more…)

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